mastication
by Marching Madly Onward
Summary: Chomp.  Crush.  Grind.  It's not a difficult concept to grasp, is it?


**mastication**

Between the blood in his eyes and the bright of the sky, it's hard to see, but he doesn't need his eyes for this kill. He can hear Tesla's blubbering just fine.

Between the mask on his face and the teeth in his head, his smile is murder writ large.

In spite of the pain of moving his body just one fucking inch, Grimmjaw's smile remains plastered on his face as he starts dragging his bloody bulk through the sands. He moans through his teeth at the sand rubbing his wounds rawer than they already are. This is a fan-fucking-tastic way to use up what little life he has left, and he's fucking ecstatic.

It's been too long since he's gone on a real hunt.

Taking his pack into the human world to off Kurosaki isn't the same. That weren't hunting like the pack of the good old days. There were on a self-assigned seek-and-destroy mission as stone cold killers. It's the same scenario of kill-or-be-killed, but they run at completely different speeds, with wildly different outcomes and impossibly dissimilar highs.

For the past three years, it's been all about the kill. Before that, the kill was just the first step to the feast.

Grimmjaw hasn't eaten in a very long time—hasn't needed to, not with the transformation removing his need to feed.

The _need_. Just like the need for food or water or shelter or booze or dope or sex.

There's no other way to describe it. He wasn't just doing it to survive or grow stronger or to avoid the wretched fate of sliding into a _Gillian_'s mindlessness. Those motivations became his motivation to be sure, but that wasn't what set him on his path toward _Vasto Lorde_.

He started doing it—started eating his "people"—because it felt fucking great.

That feeling comes back in full force. Another handful of dirt in his fist as he scrapes forward and another handful's worth seeping into his wounds. It burns, but so does his bloodlust.

So does his lust.

He's so fucking hard he can barely think anymore.

Tesla doesn't even know what's about to happen to him. Those are the most satisfying kills a predator can make.

As a killer, Grimmjaw would hate this moment. Where's the fun in it if he's not going to get a fight out of it?

As a hunter on the prowl, it sets him off like you would not believe. What could be more satisfying than dominating your prey completely and utterly, settling the struggle before it has even begun?

Tesla catches him out of the corner of his eye, so it doesn't quite work out like that.

That's fine. Grimmjaw won't let it break his stride (or would that be his slither?). Tesla's going to taste the same either way.

One-eye has enough presence of mind understand the glint in his eye, detect the murderous languor in his spirit. He raises his voice in a whisper of protest, and his arm spasms up in a futile effort to push Grimmjaw away.

Grimmjaw decides to punish him for being presumptuous enough to think he can stop this.

He eats Tesla's fingers first.

The bones crunch so loudly to his ears that he can't even hear Tesla's shout. What a coward. They're Hollows. Their entire existence is misery. Tesla should be used to this kind of abuse by now.

But he isn't, and that makes Grimmjaw want to silence him all the more.

He digs his sand-encrusted fingers into the wound the Captain dealt him. He yanks. Tesla squeals like a pig, and Grimmjaw digs in like one.

For all of his _hierro_, Tesla is very soft inside. Things ooze and slime and slick down Grimmjaw's throat like a meaty noodle dish.

Something in the back of his mind tells him that he should stop and at least explain himself to Tesla. He owes it to his old comrade to tell him that he's only doing this because it's the only way to survive his wounds. His body no longer requires this kind of sustenance to thrive, but his body still regenerates far faster with a belly full of Hollow flesh. Cannibalism is the only way his body can beat the clock on bleeding to death.

He pauses, considering his mouthful of Tesla, and decides that this is Tesla's own fault.

He was too weak to make _Espada_, too weak to fend Grimmjaw off, too weak to stand up to the Captain, too weak to be anything other than Nnoitra's bitch.

And now, bleeding out in the desert with an opportunist slurping up his innards, Tesla doesn't have the right to be anything other than a meal.

Survival of the fittest.

To the victor go the spoils.

You've made your bed, now lie in it.

Grimmjaw could spew any number of these clichés, but that would put his mouth to work on something unnecessary when he really needs to devote all his attention to wolfing down Tesla.

Priorities, man.

Tesla has finally stopped sobbing—in shock or resignation, Grimmjaw can't tell. And he doesn't really care.

It's hard for a man to care about much of anything when he's about to come.


End file.
